How far can you go with a Silliman degree? Alumni of the Silliman University College of Mass Communication share their stories of how they have gone on to pursue their respective passions.
BENEVENTO, ITALY — I’ve read this quote somewhere between the pages of books that cited Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring. I was in my third year in Mass Communication, sitting at the very end of the library, thinking how to give a presentation on one of the finest environmental books ever written.
From concluding the Silent Spring, I had looked at three books citing Carson, aiding me in giving justice to her life’s work in class. From non-fiction to fiction, Rachel Carson introduced me to authors Herman Melville, Robert Louis Stevenson, and Joseph Conrad, and from there I discovered F. Scott Fitzgerald, Ernest Hemingway, Antoine de Saint-Exupery, and George Orwell, and realized how much love I have for classical reading.
Leo Tolstoy and Fyodor Dostoevsky furthered my passion, and until now, I still read and re-read the classics. This was how I began to spend the rest of my days when I didn’t have a deadline.
In my second year, all the communication students were assigned a specific topic — engineering, health, sports, etc. — to cover, or as we call it the news beat. When assigned a news beat, you would have to be able to understand the foundations of that field to grasp the story about the lectures you’re going to write about. I learned the basics and disciplines of engineering through constant research. I copied down sentences by hand and found myself thrilled when I was able to make sense of the lectures.
I cannot count the number of times a professional engineer asked me why I knew this or that engineering jargon. (Writing this now makes sense why I’m married to a remarkable engineer.)
As a mass communication student, I unconsciously taught myself how to read with intent, as I came across incalculable stories in a time where a fallacious article can become fact by simply sharing it on social media.
Because of this, I learned to never assume – citations and references through research have become my best friends which allowed me to answer a raised hand in the middle of my class presentation, and describe in detail an ambiguous word the author had used in a specific time.
Before the class ended, I was already thinking about how to get some time learning another context of my news beat.
That’s the only thing that’s constant throughout college — learning something.
When I was sad, when I missed my family in Bohol, when I didn’t understand why I disliked someone, when I experienced my first heartbreak on the stairs of the Arts building, when I saw the world being dominated by evil lunatics, there was always one reason for it: to learn.
I love how Abraham Lincoln described learning: “I don’t like that man. I must get to know him!”
“Learning is the only thing which the mind can never exhaust, never alienate, never be tortured by, never fear or distrust, and never dream of regretting. Learning is the only thing for you. Look what a lot of things there are to learn.” – T. H. White.
As a communication student, I learned to see information as a holistic view of the world, by looking at the entirety of all the coverage of a particular topic or even a single word, a coverage that isn’t curated because of something I like, but information that is necessary for me to read, whether I like it or not.
In the classroom, information isn’t atomized and torn apart into bits and pieces damaging context. It isn’t reduced to meaninglessness and rid shared fact. Information doesn’t just come from a single source to create a reality that best suits me.
It comes from a series of factual resources, and opens itself up to instructions and questions. It sheds light where light needs to be. It asks, as Chekhov puts it, the proper questions.
Factual information isn’t instant, it needs time, and more reading, and discipline, and that’s very okay — as my teachers always say. I was taught how to chase the news, but also to never miss the story.
Inside the four walls of a classroom, I came across a reflective, slow thinking — something that aided me in follow-up stories, returning to an event to find a completely different story after the dust had settled. This was how I spent my days throughout those years in college, which have substantially changed how I now spend my daily life after college.
In my first employment, I came across an essential program where I have zero knowledge, while leading a team of people I didn’t know, and who may or may not have better knowledge of what should be done. It became frustrating but it comforts me that I can learn things. Michael Legrand had said: The more I live, the more I learn. The more I learn, the more I realize, the less I know.
In learning, there is space for humility and growth, there is space and time to listen, and to discuss, and be able to find common ground. There is time to develop empathy, compassion, and understanding.
As I am currently residing here in Italy, learning is an ally. It is my strength when things aren’t easy, especially this year.
This year, every opinion and identity is questionable. Every joy and happiness seem small and undeserving. There is always a constant anger in the news, pain from someone I know, and bitterness with my own personal life.
But I have learned to remember that I have the capacity as a learner, a thinker, an understander.
During the lockdown, I was able to write complete sentences in Italian, and to cook better. I also found some moments in the early morning to pour out the unnecessaries, so I can see things with fresh eyes during the day.
I learned to resist the urge to look at my phone, and finally pick up the books I have longed to read. I would pull out a chair outside, and be free, and travel under the cold autumn sun through every page. I also took some time to reconnect with old friends, and learn from each other through this difficult time.
As I am writing this from Benevento, I am opening the doors to my third trimester pregnancy. It is another learning season.
I have gotten used to the learning process — books piling on my Kindle, lessons and quotes from mothers, and sifting through them, applying them as if they were a balm to my soul.
As I close this piece, I urge the learners out there to lean on learning when times are losing, and things are unclear. When you don’t know anyone, when you do know someone, when you are familiar, I urge you to understand through learning.
I believe in my heart that when a generation decides to learn better, we make the next generation much more resilient when natural or unnatural disasters come. When we lean on learning, we protect them by our shared fact, by the lessons we already have learned, and we create spaces for them to correct the necessary.
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Author’s email: [email protected]
